Man in the Manure
by DARWIN51
Summary: Brennan and Booth investigate a body found on a farm. Angela tries out the interrogation room, the girls in the lab get back at Booth for something he said.
1. Chapter 1

Written like a real episode, chapters are scenes. I do not own Bones or any of the characters, except the ones I made up for this story.

Title: Man in the Manure

**Extended summary: Brennan and Booth investigate a body found on a farm. Angela tries out the interrogation room, Booth pays consequences for what he said to the girls in the lab.**

**I apologize in advance about this chapter and parts of the next one considering I know absolutely nothing about farms.**

**Set in season 5, I guess, except Zach is still there**

_Setting: Hot sunny day on a farm:_

A tall, skinny boy, no older than his late teens, wearing a red and white baseball cap and dirty, worn jean overalls, pushes a wheelbarrow up to a barn door. He grunts and slides the door open, wincing at the putrid odor that greets him.

He is not surprised though, this is the manure house, where all the manure from the cows is stored to be used as fertilizer for the crops. He pushes the wheelbarrow into the dark barn, where the sunlight from outside makes thousands of particles of dust visible floating through the air; and flies.

He grabs a pitchfork leaning against the inside wall. The manure is not randomly thrown in there, it is organized in some form. He maneuvers his way to a certain pile and thrusts the pitchfork deep into the pile.

"Ughh!" he mutters as a different smell is introduced to the air when he pulls the pitchfork out, full of manure. He ignores it, and dumps the dark brown mush into the wheelbarrow.

Wiping sweat off his head with the back of his hand, and he thrusts the pitchfork in once more. He hears a _thump_ and feels a jolt in the pitchfork that goes all the way up to his shoulders. He frowns and pulls the pitchfork out, then scoops away the manure above where he felt the thump.

A skull, mouth wide open, fragments of flesh still intact, screams silently back at him.

He jumps back and just stares for a moment, his whole body shaking, feeling like his eyes are about to pop out of his head.

He felt the pitchfork fall from his hand and he stumbles backwards, tripping over the wheelbarrow and lands on his butt on the other side of it. He scurries to his feet and runs out of the building. The mangled skull stares blankly into the air.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

_Scene: Brennan and Booth investigate the scene_

Brennan and Booth arrive on the scene in Booth's FBI car, and he pulls up right in front of the barn. Booth ducks under the crime scene tape and holds it up for Brennan.

"Oh, nasty!" Booth says in reaction to the smell in the barn, as he covers his nose with his blazer.

"Actually, I find it quite refreshing." Brennan replies.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me" Booth says.

Brennan, realizing how weird that sounded, quickly adds: "It stimulates the senses and puts one's brain on a higher alert."

"Yeah, that's great Bones. Hey it kinda looks like chocolate, huh?"

"Seeing something that is not actually there is a sign of-"

"Alright, ya know what Bones, you're just bumming me out. It's a great day, the sun is shining….."

"And we're at a possible murder site, investigating a decomposed body" Brennan says.

"Glass half empty, Bones. Well mine is half full. And nothing you say can change that right now." Booth says with a smirk.

"That analogy makes no logical sense. A glass cannot be half empty, nor half full. Depending on the capacity of the glass, it would have to be filled a certain percentage, other than that, it is either all the way full, or completely empty." Brennan says.

"nothing you say….." Booth repeated, walking ahead of her as they arrived at the body. Makeshift lights stood all around the pile of manure. A woman wearing a forensics outfit approached Brennan.

"It's…not a complete skeleton, but we managed to find most of the body."

Brennan nodded slowly, not even looking at the woman. She crouched down next to the skull, snapped on black latex gloves, and picked up the skull. She begins speaking into a recorder: "Male, his facial features appear quite elderly. The rate of decomp. Suggests he's been dead at least 2 weeks. Blunt force trauma to the left temporal lobe…." she trails off.

Booth finds some interesting looking white mush on a bone. "Ooh Hodgins will like this. Hey you! Bag that." Booth says directing a forensics guy to the mush.

Brennan, a few feet away, stands up. She walks under the tape and approaches a woman who appears to be family.

"Is it my husband? Oh dear god, please don't let it be George!" The woman pleaded.

"The victim is still unidentified. Do you know where your husband is?" Brennan questioned.

"About a month ago, he went on a trip to the Farmer's Convention in Atlanta. He goes every year but he hasn't come back, and, and he never called…he …always calls!" The woman had to stop because she began sobbing all over again.

"How old is your husband?"

"We're both 75, but he is incredibly strong for his age." The woman says.

"What's your name?" Brennan asks

"Margaret Stewart, and my husband is George. We have a son, too. His name is Kevin."

"Thank you very much" Brennan says.

She walks back over to the scene of the body and says "We're going to need all this manure back at the lab, we'll have Hodgins and Zach sift through it, see if they can find anything else."

"Alright, you heard the woman, back to the Jeffersonian!" Booth commands loudly.

"All of it?" A man asks.

"Just this section here." Brennan says, motioning to a huge pile of manure.

"Is she serious?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry for not updating sooner….**

"Okay, this is gross. I'm gonna leave until you've cleaned the skull for me and put in tissue markers. Wow, really…..gross." Angela commented, walking in and then promptly walking out.

"Hey, Angela wait." Cam said, motioning for Angela to come back.

"What do you make of this?" Cam says moving the light over what looked like part of an arm in the pile of turdy flesh on the lighted table.

"It looks like a tattoo." Angela said.

"Yeah that's what I thought, but then I ran some tests and it had traces of polyvinyl pyrrolidone in it."Cam replied.

"Sweetie, I speak English. Please elaborate. In….not such elaborate words." Angela said.

"It's a stamp," Cam said "Like the kind you get at Chuck-e-Cheese that glows when they put your hand under the purple lamp."

"Ohhh. Why didn't you just say so? But how come I can see it, and there's no purple lamp here?"Angela said.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out. Also where it came from, so I'll get a picture of it for you, and I'll have Hodgins see if he knows anything about it when he's done over there." Cam said, and Angela turned around, noticing for the first time the giant pile of manure Hodgins and Vincent were sifting through.

"Holy Shit. Literally" Angela commented.

"Did yew know that the origin of the word comes from Store High In Transit (credit to my friend's dad for teaching me that) which is how they stored manure back in-" Vincent was cut off.

"Oh please spare me!" Angela said, her voice raising to be heard as she walked away, throwing her hands up dramatically. "I had a nice box of Chinese food on my desk. Now I can't eat it because-oh got- it's orange chicken. Ughh." She walked away.

"Hey where's Brennan?" Hodgins asked.

"Oh she already examined the body, she would be here but her and Booth went down to Atlanta to check out some farmer's convention thing." Cam said.

"Sure…she gets an excuse not to be here" Hodgins huffed and he pulled part of a tibia out of the manure.

**R&R!**


	4. Chapter 4

Brennan and Booth are at the Farmer's convention:

"Gross, what's that smell?" Booth said.

"It's the people, Booth. The spend all day around all this farming equipment and the fertilizer and the animals, the smell is very organic." Brennan replied.

"Oh, is that what they call it?" Booth says sarcastically, scrunching up his nose.

They approached a table at the head of the building. "Excuse me, I'm looking for who's in charge here." Booth said to a chubby man behind the table wearing a funny belt buckle. "You're lookin' at him!" The sweaty man said. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his head with it.

"Your excessive sweating is probably a result of your obesity. Carrying around all that extra weigh puts a strain on your muscles and bones." Brennan told the man.

Long pause.

"Is she serious? My family has been _well fed_ since my great great grandparents. Back in the day it was a sign of wealth! Are you serious?" the man said, obviously getting angry.

"Serious as a post." Brennan said.

"It's _dumb_ as a post, kay Bones? Why don't you just let me do the talking?" Booth said.

"Hey what do you want, besides just to insult me?" The man said. "I have every right to kick you out!"

Booth whipped out his badge. "FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth, this here is my partner Dr. Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian. I'd like to ask you a couple questions."

"My apologies, sir. August Bernstein. Ask away." The August said, shaking Booth's hand.

"Do you know George Stewart?" Booth asked.

"Heck sure I know him. He co-owned this place with me."

"Does he have any enemies?"

"George is known for cheatin' people out on their purchases, even cheatin' on his wife, but recently he's been tryin' to take over the convention from me. It's a family business since 1884! Ugh, gets me all worked up just talkin' about it." He said, pulling out the handkerchief again. "Why, did somethin' happen?"

Brennan leaned over and mumbled in Booth's ear "Booth, that's motive for murder."


	5. Chapter 5

Scene: At the Lab

The team was at the lab. Booth comes in huffing.

"You look upset." Cam commented.

"Yeah that guy won't talk. Says he wants his lawyer." (A/N okay that sentence doesn't make sense but just go with it)

"So what's the problem then? Get the man his lawyer."

"His lawyer's on vacation in the Bahamas."

"Maybe I can talk to him." Angela spoke up.

"Yeah right, leave this to the agents." Booth said

"Actually, Angela's loveable personality and natural openness towards others would make her an ideal candidate as an interrogator." Sweets said.

"Why do I feel like you just called me a dog?" Angela said, with a half laugh in the middle of the "why".

"It's….true." Brennan said. "I feel Angela would be able to connect with these people better than Booth or I or anyone else here."

"Why?" Angela asked.

"Well, ya know..you're not as much of a squint as them." Booth said.

"You're not aggressive like Booth" Cam said

"Hey, I'm not aggressive!"

"Okay, big guy." Cam said, patting his chest.

"And Angela's not socially awkward like Dr. Brennan or Sweets. No offense." Hodgins said.

"Offense taken!" Sweets retorted.

"So basically you're saying I'd connect better with people because I'm more human than all of you?" Angela laughed

"I bet you couldn't get this guy to crack." Booth said. "Sure, you've worked the interrogation room before, but it's not child's play. This guy is legit, and he's not talkin' till he sees his lawyer."

"_Did you say…." Cam started_

"_Bet?" Angela finished._

"Ah, I believe he did." Brennan stated. Then "Ohhhh" she smiled, catching on.

"Okay, okay, I didn't mean it like that. It's an expression!" Booth protested.

They stared.

"Fine, alright. We'll make a bet. And when I win..uhh…you guys have to buy me whatever I want, whenever I want at the Royal Diner and Founding Father's for a month! Yeah." Booth said.

"Ahem..'when'?" Cam corrected.

"Then _when_ I win, you have to…." Angela started. Cam whispered in her ear. "Ooh! I love it!" Angela whispered back excitedly. "When I win you have to run around the parking lot _and_ parking garage, all levels, in nothing but your boxers!" Angela told him.

"Whoa whoa whoa…n-nothing?" Booth asked

"Nothing else. Not even shoes."

"But-But it's like 20 degrees out!" Booth said. "There's snow on the ground!"

"Well..okay then. But just think of all that pie….all you can eat…free..for a month." Angela said. "But that's just too bad then."

"Ugh. Fine." Booth said, spitting in his hand and then shaking Angela's. "But I'm only doing this because I know I'm going to win."

Angela smiled. "It's a bet."


End file.
